GRM. Brainfuck

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GRM. Brainfuck is a novel by the German - Swiss author Sibylle Berg , which was publishedby Kiepenheuer & Witsch in April 2019 .

action

The novel is set in the English town of Rochdale in the near future and describes the lives of four teenage friends there . These belong to the so-called lower class , whose everyday life is characterized by poverty , lovelessness and brutality . After all four young people lose their original family through various strokes of fate , they move to London , which happens after a third of the novel. Here they live outside of the city and society in abandoned factories, where they come into contact with the hacker scene that also lives there . Originally, the move was also aimed at taking revenge on people who had a negative impact on the lives of young people and who now live in London. The people in question are also observed, but die or lead an unhappy existence without the adolescents influencing them. In the descriptions of the life situation, the author also goes into social developments in the course of the novel. Due to the high unemployment , the unconditional basic income is introduced, but at the same time it is linked to a morally evaluating, technical monitoring system of the state . The state also restricts the rights of women and minorities . The four protagonists of the novel evade this surveillance through their illegal way of life. It is only through a change of government after a political election that integration into society takes place, which, according to the end of the book, leads to the isolation of the four participants from one another.

writing style

The novel has a special style , which is reminiscent of rap in its drastic descriptions - even the part of the book title GRM (a slang abbreviation for grime ) refers to a musical style . There is no classic text structure, but the author always stays with one person and then changes directly to the representation of the next person by giving the name. This is presented, especially if it is new to the action, in a kind of profile in the form of keywords, as in a personnel file . In addition to the four main characters of the novel, people are also described who have (mostly negative) influence on the protagonists. Among other things, Thome , who belongs to the upper class, which also introduces you to the thoughts of other social groups.

people

The following people play a crucial role in the novel:

  • Don has a brother with whom she lives in the first part of the book with her black , single mother. The mother often has changing partners (sometimes again Don’s father), who are mostly aggressive and also beat and harass Don.
  • Hannah is an only child of Asian parents. Her mother dies after a medical malpractice , causing her father to commit suicide
  • Karen is gifted and therefore suffers especially from the evil of her two brothers. The black, single mother is completely overwhelmed by the situation. All family members (except Karen) are killed in a house fire.
  • Peter is autistic and comes to England from Poland with his mother . His mother leaves him alone in Rochdale and moves to London with a rich Russian .

Furthermore, there are numerous secondary characters in the book, some of whom appear once, some regularly. Among other things, EX 2279 expresses itself regularly in the Brainfuck programming language .

reception

Commercial win

Immediately after its publication, the novel was able to place itself on the bestseller list of the Spiegel , was listed ten times in the top ten books and reached fourth place as the highest ranking. This makes the book the author's most successful publication to date.

Contemporary criticism

The apocalyptic writing style is also a frequent theme in the reviews of the book. Here is Ursula in March in the time it is a colossal performance as the gritty milieu study in their brutality still tenderness and empathy can develop the reader. Also Carsten Otte in Tagesspiegel attests the novel an amazing potency, despite simple narrative premise and rabid mongering. Both Eva Behrendt in the taz and Marlen Hobrack in der Welt find that the people in the book do not develop a personality , but are only exposed to their misery . For Philipp Theison in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung , the book is difficult to classify and against everything that still believes in a blueprint for the future.

Awards

expenditure

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Ursula March : A book like an explosive device. In: The time . April 16, 2019, accessed November 12, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Bestseller hardcover GRM. Book report , accessed on October 13, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Carsten Otte : Everything at the end. Der Tagesspiegel , April 11, 2019, accessed on October 13, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Eva Behrendt: More Brainfuck than Novel. The daily newspaper , May 10, 2019, accessed on October 13, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Marlen Hobrack: In the Swamp of Generation Z. Die Welt , April 22, 2019, accessed on October 13, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Philipp Theison: A thick book flirts with cynicism. Neue Zürcher Zeitung , May 15, 2019, accessed on October 13, 2019 .